F 9/11, another take
By I saw it Sunday afternoon. Not quite as boisterous a crowd as Rob and Scott were treated to, but enthusiastic enough. I found the film uneven, but undeniably and surprisingly powerful (especially given how little new information there was for a political geek such as myself).
It’s easy to be anti-war, and easy to make powerful, emotional filmic appeals to anti-war sentiment. As a non-pacifist who considers Moore’s lowest moment to be the montage in Bowling for Columbine that linked a violent gun culture to Vietnam to Kosovo, which is stupid and offensive, I was prepared to be bothered by the sections of the film that I feared might be cheap anti-war sentiment.
I didn’t have the response I feared at all. Moore (with a lot of help from GWB) provided an outstanding context for the segments on the Iraq war, by demonstrating just how unwilling and unable Bush had been to respond to the threat of Al Qaeda in a serious manner, the generic tragedy of war (war is always tragic, and in a banal sense is always unnecessary, if someone had behaved differently at some point) is transformed into a very specific tragedy–a war that was counterproductive to it’s stated aims to a degree we can’t begin to ascertain. The middle aged Iraqi woman shouting at the camera is a stunning bit of footage: we watch her grief for her fallen family members morph into a cursing of all things American. As Paul Krugman reminds us again today, nothing about the war and the subsequent administration of Iraq has been particularly serious. Bremer’s departing edict of a 15% maximum tax rate drives the point home more forcefully than Moore ever could. To watch the war footage, the family of a dead soldier, etc. with all this in mind makes it all the more powerful.
Is asking members of congress to encourage their children to sign up for the military a cheap stunt? Well, it’s a stunt–and gotcha stunts have long been Moore’s staple. They often work quite well and occasionally fall very, very flat. On that scale, this one is mediocre. But to judge it on its own is to miss the point he’s making. It serves as a companion to the bit where he follows around overzealous and manipulative recruiters in the economic disaster areas of Flint. That pairing, combined with a brief mention of Bush’s attempt to reduce pay and benefits for soldiers and veterans, makes a collective point that is far greater than the sum of its parts.
The footage of Bush sitting in silent panic in the classroom reading a story to children is nothing short of remarkable. Subjectively, it comes across as the most damning thing in the film. Now, I’ve heard Bush defenders say this is unfair as criticism of Bush, it means little and it could have happened to anyone. My response is simple: I have no idea what I would have done in his position. It’s entirely likely I might have reacted similarly. But here’s the rub: I know a bit about my strengths and limitations. I know I’m not a quick decision maker, and I don’t have real leadership skills. I know I would be way, way out of my depth if I were POTUS. I seek more appropriate employment accordingly. Responding quickly and effectively to developing emergencies is, I believe, part of the job description.
One big question on a lot of minds (or at least mine) is the potential electoral impact of this film. Here’s some reasonable speculation on that front. It’s hard for me to imagine a non-ideologue seeing this and seriously considering voting for Bush, but I’m hardly a good judge of that sort of thing. Given how many people have seen it and will see it, it’s hard to see how it won’t have some impact. As Atrios recently noted, part of the embrace this film is receiving has to do with the fact that it advocates a series of positions that have been rather absent from the mainstream media. I went to coffee after the film with about a dozen people, all of whom were voting for Kerry anyway, but several of whom only casually follow politics. Many of them seemed quite angry–at Bush, but also about the fact that this was the first they had heard much of this. Others talked about how if only they could get their parents/brothers etc. to see this film, they would abandon their plans to vote for Bush.
It would be unprecedented for a documentary film to have a real impact on a presidental election, as far as I know. But, a 24 million dollar opening weekend for a documentary is entirely unprecedented. Preemptive war doctrine is new as well, as is fudging evidence of WMDs before Congress and the UN. I wouldn’t rule out an impact.
The only thing left for Bush partisans is to poison the well with attacks on Moore. Shame on liberals who aid and abet this project. Moore’s work is far from perfect–at times I find him absolutely maddening–but saying he’s the left’s answer to Coulter and Limbaugh is patently unfair, and at the present time fits in perfectly with the rhetorical strategy of the right to stifle serious criticism through character assassination.
UPDATE: I forgot to mention–what the hell is Bush thinking when he says “There’s a diverse crowd here–the haves and the have mores. Some people call you the elite–I call you my base.” in front of rolling cameras? Doesn’t he have assistants, media people, “handlers”? Shouldn’t they be the last line of defense against this kind of thing?